My nuts Life · Emotions · Stories

2018 - It Couldn't have been Crazier!

It's January 1, 2018. I'm sitting at the kitchen table drawing a melancholic picture of a cat next to a dripping candle. I don't have a job, nothing works out and I feel like shit.

Today is December 31, 2018. I have my own company, I have traveled for 11 weeks, broke up with my long-standing relationship, I have moved, I have found my soulmate. And only a few days before
Christmas I bought a tiny home, into which I will move in early 2019. My euphoria-level is close to LSD. Who could have know that!? A chronology of madness.

Walking across Paris at 3 in the morning.

It's a quarter to three in the middle of the night when my phone rings. It's my normal wake-up tone, but it feels like someone is screaming "LAST CHRISTMAS!" next to my ear. My friend from the
United States arrives at Charles de Gaulle Airport at 7 and I will surprise him there. I made a crazy poster and planned to take the metro to the main station and then the train to the airport at
about 5. Did not work out.
The result was a 2-mile-walk through Paris at night - with encounters of the third kind.

Breakup: Payday for your Life's Dream.

Somewhere between the clouds and the falling streams I knew it: When I come back, my life will break apart. Implode. For eight years I was with my boyfriend. We've had good times and crappy
times.
And then you realize that your dream isn't the dream of someone else. And that you only have two options: to lie to yourself and stay, or to follow your inner call and go. A month ago, I took all
my courage and left.

5 Years without You: How You have Inspired My Life.

I can see a brimstone butterfly in front of me on the gravel path, before everything is going to be blurry.
It couldn’t have been a more perfect funeral. For a woman who inspired and changed my life forever with her courage, her dauntlessness, her love, madness, wanderlust and finally the silent
goodbye: My Granny Erika.

From Bavaria to
Andalusia by Bike.

Munich. 70 degrees and a sunny day.Silvia and Thomas are pushing their bicycles into the street. The bikes look a little bit like packed camels. With two wheels instead of
two humps. Everything’s perfect for a little bike ride. It just goes from Munich to Tarifa. Andalusia. Spain. The southernmost point of mainland in Europe.
A story about finding back to nature and everything you've never dared to do before.

Why I don't give a Shit about Possession.

If now there would be a fire in my house, I only would need to grab my notebook, my camera and a box full of
personal letters and souvenirs – and I would have saved 90 percent of all the things that do mean something to me. This is an anthem to Nothing. And how “Nothing” allows me to do everything I
always wanted to do.

Mettlesome
Maria: Change of Plans to Nepal.

I met Maria first in spring 2016. There she was planning on studying abroad in New Zealand for a while. But in the end her trip went much
further than just to "down under". What started as a semester abroad ended up as solo trip across Nepal. Right between colorful fabrics, snow-capped peaks of the Himalayas and great
self-awareness.

A Different Life: One Year after my Trip.

I wish I could pack my bags immediately and go back on a plane. Or lock myself in my house to write a book
about my adventure. But things like these are only possible in movies. In reality, I was surrounded by bills for my health insurance, my rent and worries about my CV. Only few people asked “How
has your trip been?” anymore. Most of them wanted to know: “What are you going to do now?”

Vanlife: From Factory to Freedom.

Indigo and her dog Zelda are living full time in a truck they converted into a camper. “We used to live in a
converted van, but it bit the bullet and now we have the camper,” she tells me. “Altogether we’ve been living this lifestyle for a couple of years now, and I stand firm in the belief that it’s
the best decision that I’ve ever made.” She did not need to say it out loud. Seeing her sparkling eyes would have been enough.

Touring Oman by bike: between
desert and stars.

Colorful and tiny are the tents nestling between the massive rocks. Palms are embellishing the background
instead of wallpapers. Stars are glowing instead of a lamp. Right next to the scenery bicycles are standing in the dust packed with huge bags. Lutz Bothe and his friends are on a bike ride. Not
across the lovely Netherlands but the Arabic desert country Oman. With their bikes, wild animals, a lost passport and a car racing on the beach at night.